Tribulations of a Stradivarius in America
This is the true story of the turbulent life of the famous 1713 Gibson Stradivarius, played today by Joshua Bell.
From the alpine forest, where the spruce tree chosen by Antonio Stradivari to build his violin was cut down in 1706, to its use as an ashtray by a hopeless kleptomaniac, and fraud at Lloyd’s by the man’s wife, Frédéric Chaudière takes us along this instrument’s meandering path through time. The author narrates the many fantastic events that filled the instrument’s life, as it was passed from hand to hand, stolen by a young man from Carnegie Hall in New York in 1936, and found again in 1985. He also shares with us some of the somewhat dubious practices of the dark and impassioned world that hovers around these amazing cellulose constructions worth so many millions of dollars.
Covering three centuries and two continents, the cast of characters includes Stradivari, Vivaldi, Einstein, Nixon and a jazzman suffering in prison, who finally delivers the secret…
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| Julian Altman with the Stradivarius stolen from B. Huberman | Marcelle Hall | Lloyds catalog |